INTRODUCTION The Amiga has always been the machine for technically minded users. I am amazed at the technical prowess and ingenuity of some Amiga users. It is not uncommon to hear of people with half a dozen machines (of various vintages) stripped down and penned up like battery hens churning out Ray Traced images. This sort of pioneering spirit often scorns fancy cases and expensive packaging - and more likely they can't afford it. Let's face it, in these dark recessionary days it is hard to justify more than $100 or so for peripherals for a $500 Amiga. For some time now I have been interested in the concept of Public Domain software and Shareware. The quality and range of PD has improved markedly over the years - to the point where almost any software can be obtained from the Public Domain - and it actually works well. The Amiga has a huge PD base - in fact you might say that it keeps the machine afloat. At present the trends in hardware and software seem to be diverging. For example, the current state of the art for Amigas is 24 bit colour and desktop video. The hardware to do this is getting more and more complex and out of reach, while the software is diverse and readily available through the Public Domain. Why is it so? Hardware companies have a tough life - heavy R&D costs to get a product developed followed by an incredibly expensive advertising campaign to get it recognised. There are often casualities in this primitive struggle for marketshare. Good products fall by the wayside and users end up with unsupported products after the manufacturer has folded his tent. The result of this is that we get a hardware market dominated by a couple of BIG companies surrounded by a gurgle of strugglers. The big companies invariably seem to contract IBM disease - they adopt a three letter name and become conservative. What we tend to get from IBM Syndrome companies are polished, safe and expensive designs. Corporate style often manages to stifle innovation. Look at Apple - from spunky garage company to hopping in the sack with IBM. The microcomputer industry was originally spawned in a world dominated by Big Business corporate style. Thus, any startup company that was successful began to resemble a Big Business and behave like a Big Business. Think of any major hardware or software house and you will see this transformation. As a result the marketplace ends up consisting of a couple of heavyweights slugging it out with glossy ads, incremental improvements and mischievious litigation. This whole corporate process leads to a reduction in innovation and technological diversity - not to mention inflated prices. Under these circumstances it is very easy to see how an innovative new product could just sink into oblivion. In light of these observations I think that the advent of marketing alternatives such as ShareWare is a sign of the times. The availability of low cost communications through high-speed modems and networks obviously is a major factor in this. If you have a virtually free way of distributing information to a vast global community, it does tend to distort the traditional marketing theory. Being primarily a hardware engineer, I have been looking for some sort of hardware equivalent to PD and ShareWare. I think it would be great if the Amiga community had access to high quality hardware products at real budget prices. Even if there was a fraction of the quantity of software PD, it would be a vast improvement. Projects like "The Lucas Board" have demonstrated that there is a lot of interest in PD hardware add-ons for Amiga computers. Unfortuately, you can't put hardware on a disk, and you can't give away chips and boards relying on people to send you a cheque. Some other scheme is in order. PUBLIC DOMAIN KITWARE My proposal for a ShareWare equivalent for hardware is "Public Domain KitWare". This PD KitWare is envisaged as an Open Architecture hardware design distributed on PD disks in the form of:- Schematic Diagrams (HPGL plots) PC Board Layout (HPGL plots) Mechanical drawings (HPGL plots) Documentation (text) Design Notes (text) Assembly Instructions (text) Programmers Notes (text) Support Software (binary) Drivers (binary) In addition, the author should make available at a reasonable cost, Printed Circuit Boards, Custom chips, ROMs and hard-to-get-parts. The design should be tested, known to work, and easy to build. Let me elaborate on how I see this PD KitWare concept working. By publishing Schematics and Design documents the Author is contributing a valuable resource to the Public Domain. Anyone wanting to design a similar product or learn about design principles has a starting example. By publishing a design Public Domain, the designer immediately has exposure to a large number of interested computer users world wide. A KitWare design can be quickly evaluated by SIGs or other technical people and the results disseminated on network. It is conceivable that a regulatory body similar to the Association of ShareWare Professionals could be formed which certifies KitWare designs. People can use their own skills and resources to put together some hardware for a fraction of the cost of commercial products. Small companies not able to do their own R&D can manufacture and sell the design after buying the key components - almost like a franchise. It should be possible to adapt the design to a specific application provided the original designer is credited and his/her work is not just copied. Open Architecture hardware is more likely to be supported. With easy access to schematics and design information, just about any technical person can provide support. Bulletin boards and networks are likely to be a more reliable source of technical information than a tech support line. With access to the architecture of the design, PD or commercial versions of drivers and support software can be written, independent of the original author. At his/her discretion the Author could provide source to other programmers for extensions or improvements. Custom Logic - GALs, PALs, PLDs, Gate Arrays - are not published and remain the intellectual property of the designer. The designer may become a small scale chip manufacturer like Intel of Motorola. However, other independent agents could design their own equivalent parts. Firmware or software associated with the design should be distributed in binary form only, ensuring that alternative versions are the product of a serious effort - not confusing adulterations of the original source. Subject to free market forces the design can be assembled, fixed, manufactured, sold or distributed in any way, anywhere, by anyone. The designer trades exclusive control of the design for world wide exposure. THE ROLE OF CUSTOM LOGIC Low Cost Custom Gate Arrays are the way of the future for hardware design. Even now you can get an Off-The-Shelf chip equivalent to 6,000 gates and burn a design into it using a PC. I believe this will change the way we look at hardware design. If a designer can put a signifigant part of his design into custom logic, he becomes a chip manufacturer and is free to make the rest of the design Public Domain. This paves the way for Open Architecture hardware and allows an environment where hardware design can be decentralised and individuals can profit from their work without joining a corporation. The use of custom chips is central to the idea of KitWare. Obviously no one is going to spend years developing a hardware product then give away all that work for someone else to make money out of. Custom logic provides a way to ensure that the designer gets a royalty on each product built. Anyone else will have to do a signifigant amount of work to duplicate the custom logic and will be later into the market. I think everyone will benefit from this arrangement - designers will have a new medium to propagate their designs and the Amiga community will have much more innovative and affordable source of peripherals. DISTRIBUTED DESIGN The KitWare concept opens up some interesting possibilities. What if you had a new product designed over the networks by completely independent designers. For example:- Agent A specifies a Schematic and Gate Array to implement a design Agent B designs a PCB using the Gate Array Agent C publishes software/firmware to drive it (as ShareWare) The resulting KitWare would benefit all participants as they would each supply their own relevent components. The Agents could be individuals, companies or groups. This scheme could provide a way of developing PD alternatives to big R&D things like 24 Bit video products. An evolving open architecture design would ultimately be of greater value to the Amiga Community than the duplicated effort of competitive corporate designs. Norman Jackson Plumbago Ridge Design Studio P.O. Box 98 TABULAM NSW 2470 Australia EMAIL normj@runx.oz.au